CHAPTER III 

 THE GREAT DEEPS 



The Challenger Expedition The Deep Deep Sea Great 

 Pressure Very Cold Very Dark Very Calm and Silent 

 Monotony No Depth Limit to Life No Plants in the 

 Deep Sea No Rottenness A Representative Fauna 

 Fitnesses of Deep-sea Animals Puzzle of Phosphorescence 

 Big Eyes and Little Eyes Origin of Deep-sea Animals 

 Hunger and Love in the Deep Sea Retrospect. 



TO our forefathers the depths of the sea 

 were as unknown and as mysterious as 

 fairyland. Very early, indeed, fishermen had 

 begun to explore the surface-waters, and had 

 forced them increasingly to contribute of their 

 abundance to their support, but the life of the 

 great depths was absolutely unknown, though 

 imagination peopled them with strange forms. 

 As late as the sixteenth century a famous book 

 by Conrad Gesner contained, mixed up with 

 illustrations of real animals, pictures of mer- 

 men and mermaidens, tritons, dragons, sea- 

 devils, sea-bishops, and other fabled monsters. 

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